Installation

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was it comes with 5 (yes FIVE!) DVDs.

Since I have Window 7 64 bit I started with disc 2 and followed the instructions.

As I walked through the installation, I was disappointed to see that Photoshop Elements tried to install into the C:\Program Files (x86) folder. For those of you who don't know, this means that Photoshop Elements is not 64bit program but runs in compatability mode in Windows 7. The upshot of this is that it can't use as much RAM and the other 64bit features in Windows.

Other reviews:

The Big Wins

Bigger work areas - the interface is much cleaner and there's more room to work. Always a boon when you are trying to look at the whole 12x12 scrapbook layout at once!

Masking, Guides and more - for those of use who use Grant's Tools with Photoshop Elements 8 or earlier, you'll be pleased to see most of that functionality is now built in.

New Features

Here's what Adobe has to say about the new features and my take on them.

Paint effects onto specific photo areas

Simply paint on any of 100 effects and patterns, including 30 new options, to enhance areas of your photos. New effects include Snow, Pencil Sketch, and Oil Pastel.

You can see the blue sky tool in effect here:

Easily create stunning photo effects

Use new Guided Edits for step-by-step assistance when you want to highlight your subject by simulating depth of field, add a diffuse glow to create a dreamlike Orton Effect, or break a photo up into a fun collage of snapshots.

Add curving, flowing text

Give photos or creations added flair with text that curves or flows any way you wish. Easily use text to outline shapes or objects, or have text follow any path you choose.

You simply create a shape or draw a custom path, click the green tick, then click again when the mouse pointer is a T, type away and voila! Text on a Path!

Hummie's review points out a few deficiencies, but I can see that for basic work, it's a great tool!

Tag faster using your Facebook Friends list

Use your Facebook Friends list to quickly tag faces in your photos and easily share them on Facebook.1

After authorising Photoshop Elements to access your friends list this feature is quite handy. At first it keeps asking me if relatives are the same people, but as you tag more people it should get cleverer about those things!

Get better composition with crop guides

Make any photo more interesting or energetic using new crop guides. Choose either the Rule of Thirds or Golden Ratio option to create the best composition for your photo.

This is a simple improvement that does help with photo cropping. Love the golden ratio!

Easily manage even the biggest photo library

Let Photoshop Elements automatically detect duplicate or near-duplicate photos so you can quickly group them or delete the ones you don't need. And count on improved search to find photos that have common content and color characteristics

Well so far I've had quite a few crashes of the organizer. HOWEVER, I do have over 80 000 images in my catalogue! Also, there's a new update for PSE10 organizer, so I'm sure that will help. Go to Help/Update to get the update.

I will say that it is a lot faster than the PSE8 Organizer.

If you also have a large library, you can improve performance by turning off the Media Analysis. Since I don't need faces and blurry photos detected in my digital scrapbooking library, it turned them off.

You simple go to Edit/Preferences/Media-Analysis... and turn off all of the check marks.

If you are using the Organizer for your photos you'd probably find it helpful to leave the Analyze photos for people automatically on.

About Melissa Shanhun

Melissa Shanhun is a Aussie mum of three and avid digital scrapbooker. She loves to show others how fun and easy it can be to record your precious memories with tech tools like Photoshop Elements.

http://scrapyourlife.net Cheryl M

Thanks so much for this review. I’ve only had PSE9 for a few months, saw the upgrade to 10 and was on the fence as to what to do. I now think I’ll just continue getting used to PSE and take your recommendation to wait til next year. Great post!

http://rhicarian.wordpress.com/ Michele

I just bought version 9 last November, after using version 5 for so many years, so even though I’m excited about text paths I can’t bring myself to upgrade so soon. Thank you so much for the review and the link to the video about text paths!

http://scrapyourlife.net/ Cheryl M

Well, I couldn’t resist getting PSE10 and Premier at 50% off, so I bit the bullet and got it!
Thanks for letting us know about the deal and I did use your link to get there.